This invention relates to a printer operable from a front side and suitable for being stacked with other equipment.
A printer of this type is provided for printing black and/or colour images on a printing medium, such as a sheet of paper, by way of a known printing technique, for example through successive scanning movements of an ink jet printhead in front of the print medium; and is built in such a way that manual members for printer driving, the compartment accommodating the printhead and from which the latter must be removed when being replaced, the tray containing the blank sheets still to be printed, and the tray collecting the printed sheets, are all accessible from a unique front side of the printer facing the printer operator.
In addition the printer normally has an outer casing with a shape very similar to a parallelepiped, with two lateral sides, a substantially flat upper and lower side without any members for working on the printer, in such a way that the latter may easily be stacked, above or below, with other equipment.
Stackable printers having the characteristics described above have been developed primarily to satisfy the widespread requirement among users for printers that take up little space and are easily placed in any area in the work place or the home.
Generally these printers are stacked and connected, so as not to occupy additional plan space, with equipment for the reproduction of sounds and images provided with a display screen, such as for example a television, either alone or associated with a video recorder, or a terminal connected to a network, for the purpose of printing constantly on a sheet of paper the alphanumeric information and images displayed on the screens of these equipment items.
Within the framework of this use, these printers as well as being stackable must also allow their power and connection cables to be arranged compatibly with those of the adjacent equipment and, for reasons of appearance, preferably on the side hidden from view.
A printer stackable with other equipment and operable from a front side solely for the purpose of satisfying, at least partially, the requirements outlined above is known from the European patent application EP 0879706.
This printer comprises an outer parallelepiped shape casing, a printing unit provided with a printhead, and a feeding cassette intended for accommodating a ream of sheets to be fed to the printing unit, wherein both the printing unit and the feeding cassette can be extracted from and inserted in the outer casing through a front side of the printer for effecting the usual maintenance operations, such as for example replacement of the printhead and loading the feeding cassette with a new ream of paper.
The printer also comprises a raising or lowering device, which may be actuated manually by means of an appropriate slider located on the front side for disposing the feeding cassette in alignment with the printing unit, after the feeding cassette has been inserted in the outer casing, so as to allow a correct feeding of the sheets from the feeding cassette to the printing unit.
The same device, when it is actuated in the opposite direction, moves the feeding cassette laterally with respect to the printing unit, in order to allow removal of the feeding cassette through the front side.
This printer is on the whole fairly complicated to use in order to perform the usual maintenance operations, and most particularly, when having to intervene on either the printing unit or on the feeding cassette, it implies, in addition to extracting the printing unit from the casing, the manual operation of actuating the slider located on the front side of the printer to command the device for raising/lowering the feeding cassette.
The object of this invention is therefore to produce a printer which is capable of satisfying all the requirements referred to in the foregoing, simply and inexpensively, and which, while using the tried and tested concept of being stackable with other equipment and of being operable from a front side only, still represents a significant improvement with respect to the solutions known today, and in particular is easier to use.
In greater detail, the printer of the invention must allow the operator comfortable access to all the controls and all the functions of the printer from its front side, and also have a shape, an appearance, operating methods and dimensions compatible with equipment for the reproduction of sound and images overlaid on the printer in the style of a column.
In addition, it must be possible to arrange the printer""s electric power and connection cables in accordance with those of the other overlying equipment, without detriment to general aesthetics.
A further object of the invention is to produce a printer that may be inserted in a compartment of a cabinet having closed sides and of width just sufficient for insertion of the printer.
The above objects have been obtained by means of a printer stackable and operable from the front, having the characteristics defined in the main claim.
In particular, in the printer according to this invention the upper side, the lower side and the two lateral sides, being bereft of functions or controls, can be made in the shape of flat walls which permit the printer to be overlaid in a column with other equipment, and also to be placed in a compartment of a cabinet closed at the sides and being just wide enough to allow insertion of the printer, without for this compromising its operation in any way.